


In this darkness, I’m longing for you

by orphan_account



Category: History (Band), Sunny Hill
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Inception, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-02
Updated: 2015-01-02
Packaged: 2018-03-04 23:32:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3096662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘“When I read someone’s tarot, I tell them a story,” she says.’</p>
            </blockquote>





	In this darkness, I’m longing for you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mangafanxd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mangafanxd/gifts).



“I just want you to help her,” Sunyoung says. “That’s what you do.” Sihyoung and Dokyun are trading looks behind his back, Kyungil can tell, and Sihyoung’s hand on his shoulder is a firm message with a full stop. _Get rid of her._ Even a hint of this is bad for their reputations, bad for business, bad for their day to day existence. No one talks about it because it’s like a virus, the kind you expect to end the world someday. One cough and it spreads, and spreads, and spreads.

“This isn’t helping,” Kyungil says gently. “Even if it was possible, it’s not good. We wouldn’t be helping her grow, we’d be - inserting something foreign, changing something essential about her. It’s unnatural. It’s wrong.”

“Inception ruins lives,” Sihyoung says. Dokyun sniffs, looks away, but he would have said the same thing, just a little more politely, with a few layers of varnish on an ugly truth. Kyungil winces, slightly, but he doesn’t look away from Sunyoung.

“But it’s possible,” Sunyoung says. She sets her jaw, and stops bothering to glance at Sihyoung or Dokyun. She zeroes in on Kyungil, looks him right in the eye, and waits. It’s a good stare, not intimidating, but sure and sad and slightly pained. Kyungil doesn’t want to make her explain herself. He’s not going to ask a stranger to spill her guts just so they can say no in a more detailed way, tear apart her desperate hopes point by point, but she is desperate. Kyungil can tell, he feels like he’s soaked in it, creeping up past his shoulders towards his throat. She hates them for reminding her she’s desperate, too, but she won’t walk away. It’s too important to her.

Kyungil clears his throat.

-

“Not so _loud_ ,” Gain says, but even as she looks around the market, she’s laughing. Her eyes crinkle at the corners as she covers her mouth, and it makes her look less ageless, almost approachable, even. Kyungil knows that Gain is as close to harmless as you can get in these circles, that the hair and the atmosphere and the way she watches people are how she’s built her reputation, but it’s hard to shake the feeling he gets that she was sent here from somewhere else, with some higher purpose. She teases him about this, when he admits it as they drink, but every time she sees him watching her curiously, too intently, she gives him a long, slow smile that throws it up in the air again.

“What was I supposed to do?” Kyungil says, as much to Sihyoung and Dokyun, loitering a moody distance away, as to Gain’s gentle, condescending smile. “You didn’t see her. If we didn’t help her -”

“Someone else would,” the three of them say together.

“That’s the problem,” Kyungil says. “Someone looking to make a faster buck, not concerned about the danger, no ethics to speak of. She would have gone somewhere else, to someone who’d be happy to risk that girl’s life.”

“So we have to risk _ours_ ,” Dokyun says. “Again.”

“You used to be nicer,” Sihyoung says. Kyungil chooses to ignore the weird tinge of pride in his voice.

“It won’t be as bad as you think,” Kyungil says. “No security, no stealing. Nothing a good plan can’t make smooth.”

“I smell trouble,” Jinah says from behind him. “And heard it. Inception? You piece of shit.” She slaps him on the back and flings herself onto the stool in front of Gain. When he turns, Misung has stepped up next to him. She smiles at him slightly and drops a hand on his shoulder. Kyungil likes Misung, and her team, but he finds himself stifling a groan at having more people here, watching him talk his way through this job that’s feeling increasingly precarious in his hands.

“I agree,” Sihyoung says. He spins on his chair, kicking Dokyun’s, then Jinah’s, and settling facing Kyungil. Misung has somehow stepped out of the angle of attention, arcing over to Gain’s side, so it’s just Kyungil standing here, staring down Sihyoung.

“Do you trust me?” he says, voice soft and low and a little gravelly. It isn’t really a question with Sihyoung, or Dokyun, but it serves as a good foundation to build on. Sihyoung shrugs, one shoulder sinking low and the shape of his mouth mirroring it.

“It isn’t about trust,” Sihyoung says. “It’s about getting it done right.”

-

 _Get Jaeho_ , Misung had said, and Jinah had nodded emphatically, and Sihyoung had grinned at him, so now they’re in a bar. It’s too fancy for Kyungil and too crowded for Dokyun, who is bent over his drink and grimacing, but Sihyoung looks alive, the lighting making his cheekbones cut through the air. He keeps scanning the dance floor but Kyungil doesn’t know what he’s looking for. Maybe just looking to look.

They have a private booth so it’s a little easier for Jaeho to search them out, in theory, but it’s been an hour, nearly three very expensive whiskeys, and no one’s even glided near their table. The allure of Sihyoung is apparently outweighed by Dokyun’s black cloud and the way Kyungil sticks out - too rough, too old, too underdressed.

Kyungil is about to get up - to leave or get a fourth whiskey, he hasn’t decided - when someone slides in fast to the seat alongside Sihyoung. Kyungil can barely make out his face, he’s moving so fast and he’s turning so immediately towards Sihyoung.

“Hey, babe,” he says, and Dokyun spits out his drink.

“Me?” says Sihyoung, but he sounds amused, his head tilting towards the young man, visibly shorter than him, even seated.

“Not your name?” he says cheerfully. “Damn. You look like a babe.” Sihyoung starts laughing even as the guy is turning away from him to stretch a hand across the table to Kyungil. “Jaeho,” he says. “And how are you?”

Kyungil offers a hand carefully, but even he’s smiling a little, and Jaeho’s smile gets bigger.

“You’re a good forger?” Kyungil says.

“I’m the _best forger_ ,” Jaeho says, and he clearly does something with his hand on Sihyoung’s knee. To his credit, Sihyoung just sips his drink, hiding his expression behind the glass.

“Did Misung say anything about us?” Kyungil says, venturing deeper into the water. Jaeho shrugs.

“Solid guys, good team, tricky job? Something a little off the beaten path.”

“Inception,” Sihyoung says lightly, and Jaeho stares at him. After a second, he whistles.

“Misung has some weird friends,” Jaeho says, a little hollowly.

“Tell me about it,” Dokyun says, and downs his drink.  
-  
It’s hard not to notice Sunyoung, even when she’s silent as a church, and Jaeho and Sihyoung are yelling happily at each other across the expanse of the attic, voices ringing against the wood. She said she’d be invisible when she asked to sit in, and she’s certainly tried, but Kyungil finds him looking over at her again and again.

“Yes?” she says softly, several hours into their third day holed up in Dokyun’s house. He had stretched at his table, pushed blueprints aside to head down to the kitchen, only to find Sunyoung leaning against the counter with a glass of water in her hand.

“Sorry,” Kyungil says. She waves her other hand forgivingly, and he reaches around her for a glass, careful to leave a wide berth of space. Sunyoung watches him, now, as he fills his glass.

“It’s more work than I realized,” she says, but she smiles at him, and he’s seen the way she’s watched their work, how carefully she’s taking in everything, even their discards.

“We’re being very careful,” Kyungil says. “Every avenue accounted for.”

“Very professional,” Sunyoung says, and Kyungil can’t decipher what she means now at all.

“We’re very good,” he says, and she laughs suddenly, loud and big in a way he wasn’t expecting.

“Sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean to be rude. I’m just -” She trails off, waving her hand again, more aimlessly.

“Concerned? Worried?” Kyungil offers.

“I don’t know if anything’s good enough for her,” Sunyoung says. “Which isn’t your fault. It’s me.”

“You care about her,” Kyungil says, but the words feel flat and silly in his mouth, trying to convey too much with too little. She purses her lips and sighs, but she also doesn’t say no. Kyungil finds himself reaching into his pocket for his token, the little glass bottle he’d painstakingly blown himself and terribly ugly, bumpy and mottled, but the pattern is familiar under his fingertips.

“She needs something,” Sunyoung says. _And I don’t know what_ resting in the air around her, or maybe _Something I can’t give her._ She sips her water, but she swallows harder than necessary.

“I know,” Kyungil says, and doesn’t know why he said it. Sunyoung raises an eyebrow, but there’s a hint of a smile on her lips.

“We’re doing our best,” he adds, and her eyebrow drops. She nods at him, politely, then walks outside into the sun.  
-

“Dead,” Seunghyun whispers loudly. He blows bubbles into his wine.

“Hm?” Kyungil says. He jerks his head up off the table, then has to let it fall again. The table is cold and firm, and his forehead hurts a little but it’s worth it.

“You,” Seunghyun intones. “Dead.”

“I’m not,” Kyungil says. He puts his hand to his face, reassuringly solid, and puts his other hand on his chest. He taps his ribs - present - then runs his fingers up and down his stomach until it tickles a little. Kyungil giggles, then tries to twist in Seunghyun’s direction. “I’m not!”

“After the _thing._ ” Kyungil is not sober, will not be sober for at least several hours and an upsettingly strong coffee, but the shudder running down his spine feels something like it for a second. Kyungil’s not avoiding it, he’s not the type to avoid things, but this isn’t an alcohol discussion. He twists again, tries harder, and he’s going to be uncomfortable sitting like this in a minute, but now he can look around instead of at Seunghyun magnifying himself with his glass.

Seunghyun’s apartment is sleek and black and white, all long lines and high ceilings and minimalist furniture. The combined effect makes it so easy to forget it’s in a tree that Kyungil almost thinks it’s intentional, but then, why build a treehouse? He’s asked Seunghyun this before, but he only considers it when he’s drunk, and when Seunghyun’s drunk, a straight answer very quickly becomes a tangent, and then somehow the crab hat comes out.

The view out the big window is alright, though, even this late. Kyungil can barely make out the canopy of trees, a gloomy, black and blue sea stretching out from under the house’s foundation, but the starlight floods the edges of apartment in a way that always makes Kyungil reach for his pocket. He has the bottle cupped in his hand when he looks back at Seunghyun, and even if it’s hidden by fabric, it feels obvious, that little gesture that says insecure in the most important, earthshaking way. Seunghyun is still watching him through the wineglass, one eye ludicrously big.

“You live here,” Kyungil says accusingly. “It’s not normal for everyone.” But he lets the bottle go and reaches for his glass again.

“Normal,” Seunghyun says mildly. He picks his glass up and takes a long, slow drink, then keeps holding onto it in one hand, squinting at Kyungil right over the rim. Kyungil squirms, feeling the alcohol start to recede again. When he’s drained his drink Seunghyun is still looking, still as stone.

“You said it already,” Kyungil says, his voice slurred. Seunghyun’s eyebrows go as far as they can up his forehead, his face so stretched his mouth pulls up.

“Said what?”

“ _Dead_ ,” Kyungil snaps, and it looks like Seunghyun picks up the thread again, eyes wide and nodding in confirmation. He puts his glass down carefully, then collapses onto the table, like someone finally cut his strings.

“Yijungie,” Seunghyun sing-songs, his voice cute but muffled, head resting on his arms. Kyungil’s about to correct him, not for the first time, when Seunghyun adds, “You’ll like him. Or not, but you’ll like what he does.”

“What?” Seunghyun is already asleep. The tops of the trees rustle, then fall still, and the house is silent and dark. Kyungil looks around at the shape of the shadows, then puts his head back on the table, too.

-

It doesn’t look like an apartment block. Maybe Kyungil’s been ruined by Seunghyun’s house, by his own faintly picturesque apartment over the market - (by dreams, he won’t say) - but this is one large concrete block on two-foot stilts, with irregular growths coming off the sides, like the residents woke up one day and found their living rooms had stretched out into the open air. A demonstrably permanent structure that’s temporary for everyone who comes into its orbit. Who would stay here?

Yijung, apparently, if Seunghyun’s mumbled directions were right. He still wouldn’t tell Kyungil why he needs to see this guy, just one big smile as he closed the door in Kyungil’s face. So now here he is, hungover and confused and maybe avoiding heading back to Sihyoung’s attic. The building door is open, no security in sight, not even a lock, and so Kyungil may as well climb the stairs.

The door opens under his hand when he knocks, slowly offering a view of a room that looks empty at first. Concrete, large and sparse, furniture scattered to the edges and not exactly in good shape. But in the middle of the room there are piles of clothes

 _Babies_ , Kyungil thinks. _Everyone in this business is a baby._  
“Except you,” Yijung says. He smiles a little, then goes back to sorting clothes like Kyungil didn’t flinch, isn’t staring at him and pale as a sheet probably. His hand is in his pocket before he can figure out how to reply, how to form words.

“Did you -” Kyungil says, and Yijung’s shaking his head emphatically before he can finish.

“No,” he says. “Sorry. It’s just a party trick. Kind of.”

“I’m sorry,” Kyungil says, and knows his voice has dropped in a way that makes it sound like he’s apologizing for something profound. “I didn’t mean to burst in on you -”

“You’re in dreams,” Yijung says, “and it’s something serious, and Seunghyun thought you needed me.”

“Yes,” Kyungil says, and his voice shakes a little. He’s seen plenty of incredible things in his life, but somehow it’s made it harder to face the ones he comes across in real life, like somewhere some border is collapsing.

“I’m just,” Yijung says, his face screwing up as he thinks. “I’m good at reading people. And I spend a lot of time talking to people and eventually you can see…...everything.” He looks at Kyungil like this should make sense, but talking to people has never been a focus of Kyungil’s job. Important, maybe, but something Sihyoung and Dokyun have always been able to handle.

“You understand inception, then,” Kyungil says. Has he said it out loud before? It catches in his throat, the shape of the word unfamiliar and raw.

Yijung looks startled, finally, and his face closes. Kyungil is prepared to walk right back out the door, even as his chest contracts a little at the thought. He takes a breath, uncomfortably tight.

But Yijung says, “So you really do need me.” His tone is grim, but he puts down the sweater in his hands. Kyungil wants to ask why but Yijung’s mouth is working like he wants to make sure he says the right things, so Kyungil just clasps his hands behind his back and steps a little farther into the room.

“You know how serious this is,” Yijung says, and his tone is sharper than before, the aura of friendly calm gone. “To do this to another person. To go inside their head and _change_ something.”

“Of course,” Kyungil says, and he finds himself snapping back, like it isn’t fair, like it isn’t the right way to see this from outside. “But we were asked to help. Not to harm. Not for selfish reasons.”

“Does it matter?” Yijung says. There’s no good answer so Kyungil turns, angling back towards the door.

“If you don’t like it, you don’t need to be a part of it,” he says, avoiding looking in Yijung’s direction at all.

“I hate it,” Yijung says. “But they could get hurt.”  
-  
“People do terrible things with dream technology,” Kyungil says. Gain drips a little more whiskey in his glass, and they both watch drops slide down the uppermost ice cube.

“You want me to say it’s not so bad,” Gain says. “It’s okay because she won’t know. There’s no pain.” Kyungil doesn’t answer, a little heat in his cheeks. Gain says it gently, but it’s unmistakable in the way it cuts at him. He successfully doesn’t think about these things because he has a job to do, and then he has to go and make friends, and talk to them.

“Or maybe all of it’s bad,” she says. “Sorry,” she adds when Kyungil’s forehead creases, but she shrugs as she says it, and pours her own drink.

“I love you,” she says, swirling the ice in her glass, looking farther into the distance when he won’t meet her eye. “Your team. But you work for shady people. You steal.”

“Sunyoung isn’t shady,” Kyungil says, because it’s the only rebuttal he has.

“And yet this is the job you worry about,” Gain says. She opens her hands in his direction, then sets her drink down next to his. She starts going through the cupboards along the insides of the stall’s frame, and as Kyungil sees candles and scarves, it dawns on him that she does more in the market than drink with people and talk.

“Have I ever read your tarot?” she asks, turning back to him with a purple deck of cards in her hand, too big to be playing cards and with a smoky, glittery pattern across the back.

“I’m not going to,” she says, as though he’d asked. “But I think you should see this.” She starts to shuffle the cards, smooth as silk, like she’s passing ribbons between her hands.  
She doesn’t even look, eyes still on Kyungil.

“When I read someone’s tarot, I tell a story,” Gain says. “It’s not always a story they want to hear, but they don’t have to. They can tell me it’s nonsense and walk away.” Kyungil fixes his eyes on the counter when she pauses. She breathes in, breathes out, airy, then continues.

“But most of them don’t. Even if they don’t like it, even if the reading doesn’t make sense to me, they take it into themselves.” She pulls a card out of the deck and lays it in front of them. _Three of swords_ , Kyungil reads, eyes to drawn to the way the earth bleeds around the swords.

“A tarot reading is a lot of things,” Gain says carefully, “and means many different things to different people.” She picks the three of swords up again, shuffles it back into the deck, then cuts it, cuts it again, and offers the deck to Kyungil, the top card pushed a little farther forward. “But often it’s an easy way to take a hard look at your life. Pain cloaked in velvet.” Kyungil takes the card and flips it onto the counter, arcing over his hand.

A skeleton astride a horse grins up at him. _Death_ , his nameplate reads.  
-  
“It’s dangerous,” Sunyoung says, suddenly, loudly, and everyone except Yijung jumps. He’s watching her, Kyungil sees, eyebrows furrowed, like he’s trying to slide free the first piece of a puzzle box.

“Yeah,” Dokyun says, voice a little crisp. Sunyoung turns the force of her gaze on him, and he does cringe, but he stares back.

“For Jieun?” she asks, but this time it’s just a question for Dokyun, and he wrinkles his nose.

“Potentially. In the longer term, but in the short term, in her mind, it’s more dangerous for us.” Sunyoung looks taken aback, and Kyungil realizes she was ready for a specific conversation, had planned her responses in advance.

She rallies, though, asks Dokyun, “Why? Would she know what we’re doing?” Yijung tilts his head at the we and so does Sihyoung, a frame out of sync.

“Not exactly,” Dokyun says. “It’s more like an immune system response. Any intruders are considered threats. Shoot first.”

“So something familiar might help,” Sunyoung says. “It could distract her subconscious.” Dokyung glances at Kyungil over her shoulder, and someone has pinched Sihyoung off to the side. She ignores his yelp and follows Dokyun’s gaze, turning back to Kyungil.

“I understand,” Kyungil says, trying to choose his words, “why you would want to. But it can be hard to adjust to dream space. It’s complicated in there, irrational, and it doesn’t come very naturally. The suggestion could be good, if you had more experience, but -”

“It wasn’t a suggestion, actually,” Sunyoung says, and beams at him.  
-  
Yijung and Sihyoung are braiding flowers, ridiculously. The PASIV sits between them, on a blanket on the grass, just in case, but they’re picking the little wildflowers around it -

Kyungil doesn’t know the names - and carefully tying them to each other. Jaeho had been messing with them, picking the petals off and throwing grass, until Sihyoung had very carefully tied off a strand and placed it on Jaeho’s head. He’s lying on the grass behind them now, half-watching the pair of them, half-watching the clouds go by. Dokyun is on watch down the trail, but he’s sitting in the grass too, running his fingers through it idly. It’s idyllic, like no one is nervous except Kyungil, standing in one of the clear spots of sun.

“Sit down,” Sihyoung says, but it’s out of habit, and he doesn’t look up from the strands he’s braiding around Yijung’s wrist. He’d been suspicious of the woods when Sunyoung had said it, but he looks now like he’s never been anywhere else. There’s a flash of envy in Kyungil’s chest that surprises him, but he overrides it, thinks about the schedule.

Jieun and Sunyoung go on walks in this forest Saturday afternoons, usually bring a picnic, sometimes end up falling asleep in the sun. Sunyoung has promised to drug her tea, and she’ll signal to them, just out of sight up the hill, once Jieun is asleep. They come down, they hook her up to the PASIV, and when they’re done they disappear back into the trees.

“You have strange dreams in the woods,” Yijung had said, nodding, and Jaeho had agreed immediately. Kyungil feels like he’s constantly being surprised by people on this job; not just the ones he’s still learning but Sihyoung, eyes softening around his new friends bedecked in flowers, Dokyun voicing opinions, sharply. Gain talking to him seriously, not harsh but hard. Asking him to take a look at the world.

Sunyoung whistles before she waves at them, sharp, piercing, and Kyungil must jump, because  
everyone stares. He doesn’t know how she didn’t wake Jieun, but when he peers over the lip of the hill, she’s curled up on the edge of the picnic blanket, hair spread out across the grass.

“Alright,” Kyungil says.  
-  
The first level is an easy one, short, simple, fairly standard to what they’d do normally. A nice ease-in, but Sunyoung looks unimpressed. Her eyes glance across the pictures in the wall, the hospital beds in the middle of the room - a creepy touch, admittedly - before she turns steely-eyed to Kyungil.

“I don’t like this,” she says, as though the fact of saying it will make the dream shift around them. Sihyoung rolls his eyes and Kyungil can’t stifle a shrug, but he rushes to speak before she can, eyes flashing.

“We need something to establish heightened emotions,” Kyungil says, a little loudly. Yijung doesn’t look up from where he’s leaning at the window, staring down into the other house.

“And fear is good,” he continues. “It puts the subject in a vulnerable place in their mind.

In the physical world we’d be shut out, but if we frame this right, we’ll be drawn further into her subconscious with her.”

“You said you’d be careful,” Sunyoung says. Dokyun snaps, “We _are_ ”, and it rings across the attic exactly as it had when they were planning, somehow reflecting the noise as though it were the real space, clogged with tables and clutter. Dokyun chews on his lip as he hears it, then turns back to his post at the front window.

“Fear is powerful,” Kyungil says. He wants to take Sunyoung’s hands in his, look her in the eye like it’ll make her understand, but she has them crossed at her stomach, face cold. “And it will draw out echoes of grief, but nothing full. We can’t evoke her fiance yet without damaging the integrity of the dream.”

“She just hates being scared,” Sunyoung says, hands tightening.

“It’s just a dream,” Kyungil says.  
-  
The bar is Kyungil’s haunt, his familiar landscape built out to incredible scale, the labyrinths evolving out of carefully poorly placed tables and mirrors, and farther out in the distance, more bars, repeating on end for longer than he can see. The dimness of the place is usually something Kyungil takes comfort in, but as it extends outwards, it seems like a cloud hanging over them, obscuring the ceiling, or maybe the open sky.

It’s his regular bar, and his architecture, but he sits back with Sunyoung as Sihyoung works magic, Yijung pouring Jieun a drink and watching carefully. It’s risky, putting the dream in such close contact with the subject, but everyone else needs to continue on, and this is Sihyoung’s magic. Kyungil has never seen someone so naturally and easily connect to a total stranger, and he can do it anywhere, but there’s something about the close quarters of a bar that brings something out in Sihyoung, an immediate in to someone’s hopes and fears. After some argument with Jaeho, Sihyoung had promised to be fast, as surgical as you can

A young man in suspenders walks past, and he’s not looking at them, but Sunyoung’s head whips around, craning after him, and Kyungil can see alarm in her eyes.

“What is it?” he says, gently, avoiding letting any tinge of fear creep into his voice.

“I thought -” Sunyoung stops, still staring although the man has disappeared into the crowd.

“I recognized him, I think,” she says, then throws back the rest of her drink, eyes up into the cloud.

“Our dreams are populated with people we know,” Kyungil says. “The people around us are probably acquaintances of Jieun’s. You’re bound to know someone.” Sunyoung nods slowly, but there’s something lingering on her face that Kyungil can’t grasp. She pours another drink from the bottle Yijung had left them, and offers it in his direction, but Kyungil shakes his head. He pulls his bumpy, ugly bottle out of his pocket and pours a measure into his glass, although he has no idea what’s in it. Peppermint and licorice waft towards him as he recorks the bottle.

Jaeho is hanging back in this level as well, saving his big show for the finale, and he comes up by them with a drink of his own, uncharacteristically quiet. “Good?” he says, and Kyungil nods. At the far end of the bar, Sihyoung and Jieun have tilted towards each other slightly, the closeness less intimacy than companionship, the familiarity that comes from discussing pain in public. It’s mesmerising, even without being able to hear them, and it takes a moment before Kyungil realizes Jaeho is eyeing his hand on his little bottle, and another before he realizes how tight his grip is. When he lets go, the indents in his hand are deep, skin white and red.

Sihyoung offers his hand to Jieun, then, and they slide off their stools, towards the pocket room built deeper into the maze. Sunyoung gets up as well, and Jaeho slides his drink onto the bar next to Kyungil’s totem. Kyungil snatches it, slipping back into his pocket, and doesn’t look at Jaeho as they start to weave between projections and potted trees.  
-  
They only have so much control over the subject, over the way she’ll react to her environs, but Kyungil admits he’d expected her to wear something simpler. Elegant, black and white, neat lines. The place they’ve been trying to get her is clean, fresh and simple, and it would have been that tiniest bit of a comfort if her clothes had said the same.

Instead, her dress is green, the waistline diagonal, the hem uneven, the front of the bodice beaded in a black V. Kyungil thinks of figure skaters, initially, but it’s not the right comparison. She’s looser than that, no rigidity to the way she sits.

He can only see a sliver of her shoes, but from what he can tell, they’re bright red, which makes less sense than the dress, even less in combination with the dress. But she doesn’t seem agitated, or out of sorts. She sits quietly in the back, hands folded, looking forward.  
He meets Jieun’s eyes in the rearview mirror and hastily looks back at the road. The car is heavier under his hands than he expected, that little bit less maneuverable, and he should be concentrating. Focus on what comes next.

They can hear the drummers before they see them, the beat thrumming down the road and through the framework of the car. Jieun starts to look around, peering up through the window and into the trees, and Kyungil sneaks another glance at her as they roll slowly into the clearing.

It’s loud, here, a little too much, but Yijung doesn’t seem inclined to adjust it. He stands comfortably against the stage with Sunyoung in their matching suits, watching the approach. The drummers pull backwards perfectly, the only signs of projections still far off, among the trees. The strangeness of the dress starts to fade in Kyungil’s mind, and he pulls the car to a stop.

Jieun gets out before Kyungil is even out of the car, much less there to open her door. She’s still taking everything in as she walks to the stage, but slowly. It looks, as Kyungil watches from the side of the car, like she is looking every drummer in the eye. Looking for something.

Something grabs his wrist, suddenly, and Kyungil looks down, surprised to see Sunyoung looking distraught, her nails digging into his skin.

“The _shoes_ ,” she hisses. “Did you give them to her?”

“She was wearing them,” he says. “When she got in the car, she was wearing all of it. What is it about the shoes?” But he can already feel his skin crawl as he watches her climbing the stairs, the red shoes clicking loud enough he can hear them, and he realizes the drummers have gone silent.

“They’re from Kiyong,” Sunyoung says. “They were. They’re the only shoes she’s worn for weeks.” Horror rushes up through him, through his throat, and he can’t say anything to Sunyoung, to anyone, as she pushes open the box, as Jaeho walks up next to him looking like Kiyong, turning to smile up at Jieun.

The light erupts out of the box but the shimmer starts to fall over them immediately. Something soft brushes across Kyungil’s hand, then his neck. When he reaches up into his hair, he pulls out feathers. Not full-sized, but little ones, segments of feathers, like pillow stuffing. He looks up and it starts to land on his face, wafting and light, but en masse, like an entire flock had molted above them.

 _A flock of what_ , he thinks, then looks around the living room. It’s bright, packed  
with furniture, couches and desks and bookshelves, all covered in a layer of feathers, but there’s room to dance in between them, and that’s what Jieun is doing.

He can see the rest of them out of the corner of his vision - Sunyoung, her eyes wet, Yijung looking contemplative and Jaeho right beside him, wary. Sihyoung and Dokyun are behind them, further towards the corner of the room, looking confused. Kyungil should be confused too, worried, maybe on the edge of panic over the way her subconscious appears to have destroyed their house of cards and remained standing. But Jieun is dancing with a young man in suspenders, switching from a waltz to a jive to something he doesn’t recognize, but all of it with incredible energy and speed. She bounces on her feet, from step to step, and he keeps up effortlessly, beaming at her even as sweat drips down his nose.

She collapses, finally, onto one of the couches, her hair splayed out behind her. The young man - Kiyong - kneels in front of her, and undoes the buckles on her shoes. His hands are careful, and the way she smiles down at him is awed, slightly, like the vision of him in front of her is something precious, miraculous. He pulls one shoe off, and then the other

Jieun stands, her smile starting to fade, and as she does Kiyong vanishes, blinks out like someone changing a tv channel. The red shoes fall to the ground, clacking more times than it feels like they should. Kyungil stands, frozen, and he can see Sunyoung reaching for Jieun, but not far enough, not strongly, nearly as trapped by it as he is.

Jieun spins, fixing on Kyungil, terror starting to creep over the confusion in her face.

“Why?” she says, and everything goes black.  
-  
The sun is a little lower in the sky now, not much, but the sunlight is broken up by trees instead of directly on them, dappling the shadows across the blanket.

 _The sun_ , Kyungil thinks groggily, and then he’s awake, and upright, and Jieun is staring back at him.

“Who are you?” she asks. Her voice doesn’t waver, but she has her fists in the grass next to her.

Kyungil doesn’t know what to say. He’s never spoken to a target before, never had to go rifling through someone else’s head and then introduce himself. She’s not looking around the way she was in the dream, but Kyungil gets the impression she’s surveyed her surroundings, thoroughly. She doesn’t seem angry, necessarily, but Kyungil doesn’t know her, he realizes, can’t tell a thing from her face.

Sunyoung sits up next to him, then, and he’d be grateful if not for the stricken expression on her face. She can’t seem to look away from Jieun, but Kyungil wishes she would. He knows it can’t hurt him as much as it’s hurting her, but it’s painful to watch, her grief and Jieun’s cold, fierce confusion.

The others are stirring around them, awake but not fully understanding yet. It’s not the sharp awakening from a job they’re used to, like it was a real dream. Kyungil pulls the PASIV needle out of his arm, tugs a little harshly at Sihyoung and Jaeho’s, the only ones in reach. Jieun pulled hers out, but there’s blood beading on her arm. She panicked, waking up with a needle in her arm, in the forest, surrounded by people she doesn’t know.

Kyungil stands, takes several large steps back, and feels as though he can take a breath, finally. The others are sliding back, too, silent but awake. Dokyun pulls the PASIV with him, undelicately, but it doesn’t seem to matter.

“Luna?” Jieun says, and now her voice shakes. Sunyoung moves towards her, crawling across the blanket, and she gets close enough to touch her, but she doesn’t. They watch each other, so intensely Kyungil is uncomfortable, until Jieun says, “Was it a dream?” Her voice cracks.

Sihyoung slides a hand into Yijung’s, and the other arm around Jaeho’s shoulder. He meets Kyungil’s eye for one long moment; then, with an elegant shrug, he starts to vanish back between the trees with the other two. Dokyun isn’t as elegant, but Sunyoung and Jieun don’t notice him cracking sticks as he retreats. He pulls gently at Kyungil as he goes, but when Kyungil stays still he doesn’t force it, walking past him.

Sunyoung and Jieun have pulled away, farther into the trees, but they are talking, even if Kyungil can’t hear it. He can see the starts and stops in their conversation, the way they’ll both falter at the same time and let the silence grow again. He wants to apologize, maybe, but it seems like they’re miles away by now. Even if he said something, they couldn’t hear him.

Maybe that’s for the best.  
-  
“Hi!” Gain says, but it’s more of an expression of surprise than greeting, and she can’t seem to come up with anything else to say as he comes closer. Kyungil can’t think of anything to say either, so he just keeps strolling towards her, the lines of her face getting sharper, the crinkling around her eyes more distinct. He starts peeling his coat off as he goes, angling one sleeve off, then the other, without taking his eyes off her face.

He slides into a stool like it’s an average day, tosses his jacket onto the next, but it only just catches on the rim, and gravity starts to drag it down, the collar slipping off the seat and out of sight. There’s a quiet, melodic sound of shattering.

“Hi,” he says.


End file.
